 | Search Engine Marketing ExplainedSearch Engine Marketing is not a quick fix method that will bring you results over night, it is a process that has to be undertaken over time, monitored, checked, altered, checked again, altered again, updated, added, improved, edited, then once you think you are done, repeat the process. As more and more people get online and get comfortable with spending and buying online, it is essential for any business to have an internet presence through the use of a website. This website then has to be optimized so that you market for the search engines (SEM). If you do not setup your website in a way in which all the boxes for SEM are ticked, then the search engines may list your site, but you will appear on page 12 of the listings and never get any traffic. Figures show that 95% of people never go beyond the first page of search results to find the products and services they are looking for, highlighting the fact that you must appear on this first page and as close to the top of this page as possible. The top four things that you must know about and have on your site for successful SEM are: Content If your website is a one page site with your telephone number and email address, or if it looks like a printed brochure, listen up. Search Engines feed of content; it is their food, the more that you can provide them and the better quality the content, the more that they like you and your site. You can not have online success without loads, tonnes, mountains of content and pages that are filled with interesting and useful information that should be linked in some way to your business and its news and stories. Words, pictures, videos, blog articles, pages, in-bound and out-bound links will all help your website to compete with your competitors. Understand that people have been doing this for some time as this is not new news; understand that there are websites out there that are constantly updated daily by a team of professionals which contain millions of words and 1000's of pages of content. Search Engines like Google, Yahoo! and Bing will first look at your content as a measure on how relevant your business is to the world. If you have large amounts of information for the search engines to feed off, you will be given a high level of relevance, if you have no content or very limited amounts on a very small number of pages, then do not expect to be successful. There are however a number of different strategies that you can create and plan, most of these will be unobtainable unless you have endless hours and lots of main power. However creating a blog and making an article on it once a day if your keen, or even once or twice a week is an excellent way of improving the levels of content found on your website. If for each article you create and new page and add new images then again you are improving levels of the right stuff, helping you to improve your relevance of your site with the search engines. So if you have read through this short number of paragraphs and paid attention you have just found one of the main ways to improve your search engine ranking. Fear not, if you do not like creating content, if you don not have time to do it or if you do not have the confidence to blog, then there are always people out there on the web who are doing it for you. Simply look for a blog site of the millions that are out there and publish their content for the simple exchange of a link or two throughout your site. Connection So you have created your blog and you have been writing articles for people to read and enjoy. Any good marketer knows that it takes time for people to warm to you. You should update and refresh your content as much as possible to keep people interested and coming back for more. Once they have had a bite and like it, they will continue to return time and time again to check to see if they can get another bite that was just as nice as the first. The goal is to get that viewer not just onto your site once, but back time and time again, to connect to your RSS feed, to bookmark your site and its pages for easy viewing, allowing you to market them over and over. Once someone is following you, do not give up, try and try again and you might just do enough to get them to contact you direct. Conversation So you have made contact and your follower is ever waiting for the next post or update from your website or range of social media sites. Follow me on Twitter, subscribe to me on Facebook, link with me on LinkedIn, subscribe to my blog, rate my article, rate my picture, talk about my post - the list goes on! This is today's world explaining to you the importance of content and regular updates in today's ever changing and evolving online world. If you can market and exploit this technique correctly in cyber space then Social Media can be a big plus to you and your business. Most ordinary people have their own busy lives to be getting on with so do not expect to connect with everyone, but even if you and your regular updates manage to connect with a handful of people, its a handful of people that previously knew nothing about you, your business and your website. If you can successfully connect with potential customers creating happy and positive conversations about you and your business, you may just go viral and have people from all over the globe talking about you and your business in your own little world passing on good vibes and potential customers from every corner of the world. Consistency The most important part of SEM is consistently updating and improving the content and relevance of your website through regular and content rich updates. Everyday millions of pages and thousands of new websites are freshly indexed by the major search engines including Google, Yahoo! and Bing. Add this to the fact that search engines are constantly changing the way in which they review and rank content, you are playing a guessing game to try and create that article or page full of content that the search engines will like and increase your relevance level. So what does this mean to you? If you are trying to get any search engine traffic at all or are just trying to increase the numbers and relevance level you currently have, what should you do? Should you update your site once a month? Once a week? Twice a week? Every day? Well the answer to that question is up to you, how much time do you have to do all of the above? Update your website, post of new post on Facebook, tweet a new article on Twitter, create a post on your blog, you could easily spend all day just doing this stuff and believe me when I say, there are businesses out there that have teams of people to just do this for them spending and using resources to try and get ahead and to the top of the pile. Review So let me conclude the basis of Search Engine Marketing, you need to consistently create and update your online presence with as much content as possible as often as possible in order to suceed in the game. Having said that, each page of content that you create has the potential to never be forgotten by the search engines. If they like it then they will continue to list it and index it in search results for years to come without you even realising it. Once you create something, unless you delete it, it will stay there forever. The thing with the internet is that it is ever changing, ever evolving into a bigger and meaner monster than it was yesterday with the millions of pages, blog updates, tweets, facebook posts and conversations that will never end in the online media market place. The best thing that you can do is keep going. Even if you at least only get one new person to look and find your business, was your work a success? That is for you to work out. Sometimes you may only make one run, but sometimes you may hit that bowler for six and then the ball starts rolling.
At IMS we provide online marketing solutions to all types and sizes of businesses, putting them in touch with potential clients from all corners of the world. Our team of experts can help you, your business and your online presence to create and maintain a successful position with the major search engines. If you have any questions about any of the content that you see on this page then please contact us to find out more -> To find out more, contact us today and we will be happy to have a free discussion about you, your business and how you can create, develop and improve your online marketing strategy and online success. |  |
